SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Buderim Ginger Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Buderim Ginger Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Buderim Ginger Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Buderim Ginger Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Buderim Ginger Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Buderim Ginger Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Buderim Ginger Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Buderim Ginger Ltd
Strengths of Buderim Ginger Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Buderim Ginger Ltd are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Buderim Ginger Ltd has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
High brand equity
– Buderim Ginger Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Buderim Ginger Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Buderim Ginger Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Buderim Ginger Ltd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Buderim Ginger Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Buderim Ginger Ltd in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Buderim Ginger Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Buderim Ginger Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Buderim Ginger Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Buderim Ginger Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Buderim Ginger Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Buderim Ginger Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Buderim Ginger Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Buderim Ginger Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Buderim Ginger Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Buderim Ginger Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Buderim Ginger Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Buderim Ginger Ltd has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Buderim Ginger Ltd in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Buderim Ginger Ltd is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Buderim Ginger Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Buderim Ginger Ltd are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Buderim Ginger Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Buderim Ginger Ltd to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Buderim Ginger Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Food Processing industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Buderim Ginger Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Buderim Ginger Ltd has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Buderim Ginger Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Buderim Ginger Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Buderim Ginger Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Buderim Ginger Ltd has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Buderim Ginger Ltd lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Buderim Ginger Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Buderim Ginger Ltd to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Need for greater diversity
– Buderim Ginger Ltd has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Buderim Ginger Ltd is just above the Food Processing industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Buderim Ginger Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Buderim Ginger Ltd are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Buderim Ginger Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Buderim Ginger Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Buderim Ginger Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Buderim Ginger Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Buderim Ginger Ltd can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Food Processing industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Buderim Ginger Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Buderim Ginger Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Buderim Ginger Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Buderim Ginger Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Buderim Ginger Ltd products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Buderim Ginger Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Developing new processes and practices
– Buderim Ginger Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Buderim Ginger Ltd to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Buderim Ginger Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Buderim Ginger Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Buderim Ginger Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Buderim Ginger Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Buderim Ginger Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Buderim Ginger Ltd are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Buderim Ginger Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Food Processing industry.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Environmental challenges
– Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Buderim Ginger Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Buderim Ginger Ltd in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Buderim Ginger Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Food Processing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Buderim Ginger Ltd in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Buderim Ginger Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Buderim Ginger Ltd prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Buderim Ginger Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Buderim Ginger Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Buderim Ginger Ltd.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Buderim Ginger Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Food Processing industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Buderim Ginger Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Buderim Ginger Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.